Category: Health

By 2050, some five million people could die each year in Asia alone due to resistance to antibiotic medicines or antimicrobials, according to UN agencies. Many antibiotics are no longer effective in fighting infections as those infections have built up resistance to the medication. Deaths due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) could surpass annual cancer fatalities, […]

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called an Emergency Committee meeting on the Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has already claimed around 130 lives. The WHO has assessed the national and regional risk of the current Ebola outbreak in DRC as “very high,” although […]

Around 6.3 million children under the age of 15, died from mostly preventable causes last year, the equivalent to 1 child dying every 5 seconds, according to a new report compiled by a group of United Nations agencies. Newborn babies account for half of the deaths. The new mortality estimates study, was released on Monday […]

With conflict raging in northwest Syria, the United Nations health agency has appealed for $11 million to provide life-saving care to parts of Aleppo, Hama, Idleb and Lattakia governorates. “The health situation in north-west Syria is already dire and looks set to deteriorate,” said Michel Thieren, Regional Emergencies Director for the World Health Organization (WHO). “If WHO does not […]

Ensuring that people everywhere can trust the safety and quality of the food they eat is the focus of a UN meeting taking place this week in Rome. The international food standards body known as the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is expected to adopt a text on the maximum level of mercury in fish, among […]